Thursday, November 10, 2016

At the moment, while Les Miles is looking for a new team, there are only four active head coaches in College Football that have won a national championship: Jimbo Fisher, Urban Meyer, Nick Saban and Bob Stoops.

Bob Stoops, Oklahoma: 1 Championship

Stoops is in his 18th season as the head coach of Oklahoma. He has led the Sooners to nine Big 12 titles, six top 5 finishes in the AP Poll and 10 major bowl games during that time. His record is 186-48 overall and 118-29 in the Big 12. His national championship came in his second season with the Sooners, leading them to an undefeated season and a 13-2 win over Florida State in the BCS national championship game, held at the Orange Bowl in 2001. Since then, it’s been mostly about losing the big bowl games, and a couple of national championship games as well.

Jimbo Fisher, Florida State: 1 Championship

Fisher has been the head coach of Florida State since 2010, his first HC job. He’s gone bowling every season, and his worst year was going 9-4 in 2011. In 2013, Florida State went undefeated through the ACC and the regular season to reach the last BCS title game. In it, they narrowly beat Auburn to win their first national championship game in the post-Bobby Bowden era, who Fisher worked under for three seasons. He took FSU to the college football playoff the next season, but they lost to Oregon in the semi final.

Urban Meyer: 3 Championships

So this has been Urban Meyer’s career so far: Winning 17 games in two seasons with Bowling Green (!!!). Going 22-2, including 12-0 in 2004, during two years at Utah. Then going 65-15 at Florida, where he won two BCS championship games, including one against Ohio State, and had 3 top 3 finishes. After taking a break for one season he goes and takes the Buckeyes job, which he’s been holding since 2012. Under Meyer, Ohio State are 58-5, including 36-2 in Big Ten play. They won the first college football playoff championship game after beating Alabama in the semi final, followed by a win over Oregon in the final. He went undefeated (12-0) with Ohio State in 2012, but they were ineligible to win the conference or play in a bowl game.

Nick Saba: 5 Championships

It actually takes less time to write about the years Saban won a title in than about the ones he didn’t. Saban actually didn’t win anything while coaching Toledo or Michigan State. Things started going his way once he took the LSU job in 2000. He went 48-16 at LSU, including the 2003 BCS title after winning against Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl. Saban left LSU to be mediocre in the NFL with the Miami Dolphins, and then bolted once the Alabama jobs opened up. Excluding the sanctioned season of 2007 (Alabama were 7-6 but vacated five wins), Saban’s worst year with the Crimson Tide is going 10-3 in 2010. He’s on pace to have his second undefeated season with the Tide, winning national championships in 2009 (beating Texas), 2011 (beating LSU), 2012 (beating Notre Dame) and their first CFP title in 2015 (the game was in 2016 actually), beating Michigan State and Clemson for the title. Alabama are the only team to appear in the two CFPs so far, and will probably make it 3 this year.

One thing that comes to mind, when talking about SEC dominance and all: It’s mostly Alabama dominance. The last national champion from the SEC that isn’t Alabama was Auburn in 2010… also from the state of Alabama. The last SEC national champion that isn’t from the state of Alabama is Florida, coached by Urban Meyer in 2008.